The title screen. When I saw this first, I could've sworn it said "Rise of the Dextermities".

Them's Fightin'
Words

With me back in the OHR Community (somewhat), and since I really have nothing better to do, I decided to do something that might be somewhat useful - reviewing games. I've cycled through the gamelist to see quite a number of games that haven't been given reviews, so here I am, here to fill in the gap.

4th Year, being the first game I would ever review, doesn’t mean that it will get any special treatment. The reason I chose the game was simply because I started to cycle through the gamelist in alphabetical order and was the first game I didn’t see a “please don’t review this game” or a “there is almost no gameplay” message.

So let’s see how this game fares…

Graphics

4th Year... perhaps the title of the game is fitting after all. Although at first I see no relationship between the title and the game itself, after playing the game for a few minutes I slowly come to realize the truth - the graphics level of this game is comparable to the likes of graphics drawn by a 4 year old.

In my humble opinion, any graphics that I can never hope to match (ie, I cannot do), are good graphics. 4th Year's graphics on the other hand, one word can summarize it all: Argh.

The battle backdrops have at most, 4 colors. The walkabouts have a serious lack in detail - when they walk sideways its as if they're skating... they don't move at all! If the author can be bothered to put in some motion when they walk up and down, why couldn't he do it when they walk left and right! Don't even get me started on the title screen...

"About 100 years ago, there was a war between Funlia and Deanlia. Let's make the long story short and say that Deanlia won. The Deanlians have been craving power for a long time. Now the world is their next victim... About 3 years ago Dande entered middle school. He suspected something going wrong in New York City. Dande, Surge, Nessie, and his newfound friend Jade are our only hope."

How I see it:

If it weren’t for the readme (where the description above was taken from), I would have never guessed that such a story even existed. Why? Because I saw NO story whatsoever. So the main character (Dande) notices something strange going on outside. But stop there... stop right there. First of all, I have no idea who this guy (Dande) is. My guess is that it is a self-insertion character made by the author... but that's just a guess. There is NO character development. Not even an explanation why Dande is wearing a cape (superman-style). I mean, come on! If Dande is a middle school-er, why the heck is he wearing a cape? Is that why his school is run over by so many security guards and bullys and the streets are infested with "badboy"s?

Oh, and let us not forget about the other characters: Surge - motivational speaker who can convince normal guards to fight against you that awfully resembles that guy wearing sunglasses from "Resident Evil" , Linkwolf, a well-known Zelda character/wolf hybrid, and Nessie and Jade - random kids who can use magic that will join you because you spoke to them.

Anyway, back to the story. So Dande notices something strange, so he goes outside his house (which contains only one bed, and the only bed that is in existence thus far in the entire game), but there is nothing wrong. Or so it seems. Of course, you fight random bad guys outside, and a NPC named “Killer” is out there, but otherwise it's perfectly normal, right? Right? Nope, of course not! You go in two houses, recruit Surge and Linkwolf after talking to them very briefly, and then Surge talks to this guy who's guarding a fountain which is in fact houses a secret entrance to the school which has been taken over by Security Guards and Giant Babies and the evil Mr....

Can I stop now?

Gameplay

Gameplay? What gameplay? There is no gameplay. Well okay, there are several... there was one part where the story will not advance unless you switch the party order around so Surge had to be the party leader. I thought that was a good idea, and that hasn't been implemented in too many games. Other than that, there are several box puzzles and a stairway locked by a key. Do those even count as gameplay?

Needless to say, it wasn't very interesting. Some of the items didn't even give descriptions. Sigh.

Map Design

The only praise that I can give for this is that at least it was solid (as in, you don't walk through walls), and the one-way door idea (although it wasn't implemented very-well). Other than that... it was very painful to look at. They were plain, lacking in detail, liner, uninteresting, and no sense of exploration whatsoever. And the main dungeon-like area was the main-character’s school. I think.

Balance

The enemies were not too strong, but not too weak either. So in that way it was balanced. Space Bar mashing balanced, however. Spells did nothing, and I hardly ever used them (except for the heal spell). The biggest gripe I have about Balance is where there is this NPC which tells you that the boss you're about to fight is stronger than the boss you just fought a few minutes ago, where in reality this boss was far weaker than the previous one.

Music

No comments about the music, as I can't listen to them. However, the author did say that he put some original music in this game. Given the track record so far, perhaps it was a blessing that I can't hear music.

Enjoyment

No fun. Period. I only finished this game because just for the sake of reviewing. Heck, I'm not even sure if I did finish the game... as far as I know, there was no "End of Demo" message.

Final Blows

I must admit that the author of this game did put in some work into making this game - because one could actually play the game for more than an hour, a feat that is somewhat impressive. I commend the bugfixes he made - he announced them in the readme, and as far as I know there were no bugs left (except for the End of Demo message). However, this game has failed in all three major parts of a game, story, gameplay, and graphics. In 4th Year, there were too many plot holes, the near non-existent gameplay, and bad graphics - this game had all the qualities of the other games we consider "bad".

Learn from your mistakes, and improve.

Yes, I think we're already talking.

Final Scores

Graphics: 1.5/10.0

At the very least, I could recognize what the graphics were, instead of something unrecognizable, even if it were very bad. 1.5 for that.

Storyline: 1.5/10.0

I would've given a 1.0 if it weren't for the fact that the author put in a short story explanation in the readme. But you know something is wrong when the readme tells me more about the story than the actual game itself.

Gameplay: 2/10.0

Kudos for the "switch-the-team-around-to-continue-the-game" idea. There was also a puzzle... even if it were the dreaded box puzzle, a puzzle is a puzzle. But it was still not fun.

Music: 1/10.0

No comment. (can't hear music)

Enjoyment: 2/10.0

I have to say that I did enjoy this game because it was so… poorly made. So I didn't enjoy the game for what it was intended, but instead I enjoyed it in another way entirely. I probably would’ve enjoyed it better if it didn’t last so long…

Overall Grade:
F+

Final Thoughts

Only play this game if you want to truly understand what you want to AVOID when you're making a RPG.